Thursday, August 8, 2019

Bloom Time - Partridge Pea

While mowing the lawn I cam upon this plant. Not sure if it was a native and welcome to grow here or something I needed to yank out (sadly, we have those too).

It gets to stay.

Partridge Pea, Chamaecrista nicitans.



These plants, there are several (and there were more, damm mower) are growing at the road end of our back driveway.


Partridge Pea as a curious little gland at the base of the leaf stem, as can be seen in the image above. I've not been able to discover it's purpose, other than to help ID the plant. But I'll admit I didn't try all that hard.


It is an unassuming little plant, its small yellow flowers hiding under the leaves. Thus it may have been there for years and we've just not noticed it. It is an annual, so maybe it hasn't been there. Hopefully the seeds will fall in a suitable spot and it will make a home in our yard.


Nearby we've plenty of this stuff growing. Actually, we have this growing all about the yard. Partridgeberry, Mitchell repens.

We also have a Bradford Pear Tree, which we are trying to kill. It has pretty white flowers in early spring, but is non-native and crowds out our native flora. So it has to go.

Despite all this, we have no partridges in our yard. At least none that I've seen. But I'll keep looking ...

🌺  ðŸŒ¸  ðŸŒ¹  ðŸŒ¼  ðŸŒ»

Thanks to Terry Schmidt and Tom Besselman for confirming my ID of the Partridge Pea.

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